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Ebook has 896 lines and 74724 words, and 18 pages
Editor: Arthur Mee J. A. Hammerton
THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS
JOINT EDITORS
ARTHUR MEE Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge
J.A. HAMMERTON Editor of Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia
POETRY AND DRAMA
WM. H. WISE & CO.
GOETHE PAGE Goetz von Berlichingen 1 Iphigenia in Tauris 18
GOGOL, NICOLAI Inspector-General 30
GOLDSMITH, OLIVER She Stoops to Conquer 39
HEINE, HEINRICH Atta Troll 50
HOMER Iliad 66 Odyssey 78
HORACE Poems 91
HUGO, VICTOR Hernani 110 Marion de Lorme 123 Ruy Blas 134 The King Amuses Himself 146 The Legend of the Alps 159
IBSEN, HENRIK Master Builder 171 Pillars of Society 186
JONSON, BEN Every Man in His Humour 195
JUVENAL Satires 207
KLOPSTOCK, FRIEDRICH GOTTLIEB Messiah 217
LESSING, GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM Nathan the Wise 226
LONGFELLOW Evangeline 241 Hiawatha 250
LUCRETIUS On the Nature of Things 261
MACPHERSON, JAMES Ossian 272
MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER Dr. Faustus 282
MARTIAL Epigrams, Epitaphs, and Poems 295
MASSINGER, PHILIP New Way to Pay Old Debts 305
MILTON Paradise Lost 319 Paradise Regained 342 Samson Agonistes 349
MOLI?RE The Doctor in Spite of Himself 362
GOETHE
Goetz von Berlichingen
ACT I
GOETZ: Where can my men be? Up and down I have to walk, lest sleep should overcome me. Five days and nights already in ambush. But when I get thee, Weislingen, I shall make up for it! You priests may send round your obliging Weislingen to decry me--I am awake. You escaped me, bishop! So your dear Weislingen may pay the piper. George! George! Tell Hans to get ready. My scouts may be back any moment. And give me some more wine!
GEORGE: Hark! I hear some horses galloping--two--it must be your men!
GOETZ: My horse, quick! Tell Hans to arm!
Iphigenia in Tauris
ACT I
THOAS: To-day I come within this sacred fane, Which I have often entered to implore And thank the gods for conquest. In my breast I bear an old and fondly-cherish'd wish, To which methinks thou canst not be a stranger: I hope, a blessing to myself and realm, To lead thee to my dwelling as my bride.
IPHIGENIA: Too great thine offer, king, to one unknown, Who on this shore sought only what thou gavest, Safety and peace.
THOAS: Thus still to shroud thyself From me, as from the lowest, in the veil Of mystery which wrapp'd thy coming here, Would in no country be deem'd just or right.
IPHIGENIA: If I conceal'd, O king, my name, my race, It was embarrassment, and not mistrust. For didst thou know who stands before thee now, Strange horror would possess thy mighty heart, And, far from wishing me to share thy throne, Thou wouldst more likely banish me forthwith.
THOAS: Whate'er respecting thee the gods decree, Since thou hast dwelt amongst us, and enjoy'd The privilege the pious stranger claims, To me hath fail'd no blessing sent from heaven. End then thy silence, priestess!
IPHIGENIA: I issue from the Titan's race.
THOAS: From that same Tantalus, whom Jove himself Drew to his council and his social board?
IPHIGENIA: His crime was human, and their doom severe; Alas, and his whole race must bear their hate. His son, Pelops, obtained his second wife Through treachery and murder. And Hebe's sons, Thyestes and Atreus, envious of the love That Pelops bore his first-born, murdered him. The mother, held as murderess by the sire, In terror did destroy herself. The sons, After the death of Pelops, shared the rule O'er Mycenae, till Atreus from the realm Thyestes drove. Oh, spare me to relate The deeds of horror, vengeance, cruel infamy That ended in a feast where Atreus made His brother eat the flesh of his own boys.
THOAS: But tell me by what miracle thou sprangest From race so savage.
IPHIGENIA: Atreus' eldest son Was Agamemnon; he, O king, my sire; My mother Clytemnestra, who then bore To him Electra, and to fill his cup Of bliss, Orestes. But misfortunes new Befel our ancient house, when to avenge The fairest woman's wrongs the kings of Greece Round Ilion's walls encamp'd, led by my sire. In Aulis vainly for a favouring gale They waited; for, enrag'd against their chief, Diana stay'd their progress, and requir'd, Through Chalcas' voice, the monarch's eldest daughter. They lured me to the altar, and this head There to the goddess doomed. She was appeased, And shrouded me in a protecting cloud. Here I awakened from the dream of death, Diana's priestess, I who speak with thee.
THOAS: I yield no higher honour or regard To the king's daughter than the maid unknown; Once more my first proposal I repeat.
IPHIGENIA: Hath not the goddess who protected me Alone a right to my devoted head?
IPHIGENIA: I have to thee my inmost heart reveal'd. My father, mother, and my long-lost home With yearning soul I pine to see.
THOAS: Then go! And to the voice of reason close thine ear. Hear then my last resolve. Be priestess still Of the great goddess who selected thee. From olden time no stranger near'd our shore But fell a victim at her sacred shrine; But thou, with kind affection didst enthral Me so that wholly I forgot my duty; And I did not hear my people's murmurs. Now they cry aloud. No longer now Will I oppose the wishes of the crowd. Two strangers, whom in caverns of the shore We found conceal'd, and whose arrival here Bodes to my realm no good, are in my power. With them thy goddess may once more resume Her ancient, pious, long-suspended rites! I send them here--thy duty not unknown. Goethe's fascinating and noble drama, "Iphigenia in Tauris," was first written in prose, and recast into verse in 1786. Inspired partly by his feelings towards Frau von Stein, whom Goethe "credited with knowing every trait of his being," and partly by the "Iphigenia in Tauris" of Euripides, the play is totally different from anything that had as yet come from his pen. Although it lacks some of the pomp and circumstance of the best Greek tragedy, it is written with great dignity in the strictest classical form, admirably suggesting the best in French classical drama. The prominent motive of the piece is the struggle between truth and falsehood. "It is," one critic has remarked, "a poetic drama of the soul." On its production at Weimar, the German public received it indifferently.
GOGOL
The Inspector-General
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